1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a clear ink composition, an ink set, an ink cartridge, an ink jet recording method, and a recorded article, and in particular to an ink set and so on according to which a recorded article having excellent recorded image coloration and glossiness can be provided.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet recording method is a printing method in which recording is carried out by making droplets of ink compositions fly onto a recording medium such as paper. This method has the distinctive characteristic that vivid high-resolution images can be printed at high speed while using a relatively inexpensive apparatus.
From hitherto, various ink sets comprising ink compositions for use in recording using such an ink jet recording method have been proposed.
In recent years, there have been increased demands for recorded images of higher quality, and hence various measures have been taken to further improve the coloration and glossiness of recorded images.
However, recorded articles having sufficiently good recorded image coloration and glossiness have not yet been provided.
For example, printing ink binders containing modified polypropylene (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H08-12913), colored pigment inks containing modified polypropylene (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-31386) and so on have been proposed hitherto, but these differ from clear inks, and do not improve the coloration and glossiness of recorded images.
Moreover, as art for improving the glossiness of recorded images, for example in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-277488, a recording method is proposed in which at least two types of black ink having a different density to one another and an ink that does not contain a colorant are used, and the ink that does not contain a colorant is used only in parts where the black inks are not printed; however, with this method, not only can color images not be obtained, but moreover there is a problem that the coloration and glossiness of recorded images cannot be sufficiently improved.